Chapter 252: The Shulin on the West Side of Bingxun Pass — Searching for Bandits and the First Human Kill

Zhao Ji returned to the room he had rented at the inn and rested for the night.

The next day, he set out to find the hideout of that gang of bandits. This was not an easy task; after all, it was said that the previous large-scale sweeps of the forest by the militia had failed to locate this gang of "Luodai Cave" bandits.

If he wanted to find them, he would have to think of a way, or perhaps use some heavy-handed tactics. Walking along the noisy road at the pass, Zhao Ji touched the backpack on his back, recalling some strange mushrooms he had obtained when burning the goblin Altar, which made goblins stronger after eating them.

Old Duomu had dried those mushrooms and gifted them to him, and Zhao Ji decided to find a bandit who had killed people to test these strange mushrooms. For one, he could use these mushrooms, which looked like nothing good, to scare the captured bandits and try to make them reveal the location of the other bandits' hideouts. For another, he could test what kind of peculiar effects they might have after a Human ate them.

Zhao Ji felt that if a Human became as powerful as those red-eyed goblins after eating these mushrooms, he could use them as a trump card to boost combat effectiveness.

After all, he had a deep impression of the combat power of those originally weak goblins after they consumed the mushrooms.

To the east and west of Bingxun Pass lie the Kendall River and a small number of houses on the east side, followed by a large expanse of forest. The west side connects directly to a large expanse of forest.

Between the buildings of the pass and the forest, there are scattered stretches of walls and watchtowers; the only way to enter the pass is through the main gates on the north and south sides.

Zhao Ji went out through the north gate. Since he was not carrying a Handcart, the Soldier guarding the pass entrance only checked Zhao Ji's Backpack before letting him out, without collecting any taxes on goods or the like.

Looking at the vast forests on the east and west sides, Zhao Ji considered for a while and decided to go into the western forest to search for traces of the bandits. Because the roads from Kendall County to other counties and the Province Capital were all on this side, if those bandits wanted to conveniently track and plunder the Caravan, they had to concentrate their manpower on the west side, which was adjacent to the pass road.

Since there were no bridges convenient for crossing the river within a day's journey north of Bingxun Pass, and as for whether there were bridges on the downstream roads, Zhao Ji guessed there were none; otherwise, the east side of Bingxun Pass would not have failed to develop.

Without bridges to cross the river, those bandits would not want to row a boat every time they went out to plunder a Caravan; that would be too troublesome. Moreover, from what Zhao Ji saw yesterday, the boats on the river were basically gathered inside Bingxun Pass, providing ferry services for residents on both sides of the river at the pass.

Those boats were all inside the pass and could not pass the stone pillars and metal obstructions set up by the pass on the river to enter the upper or lower reaches of the Kendall River. Thus, they could not be used by the bandits.

After leaving the pass, Zhao Ji walked west and entered the Shulin.

Unlike the forest floor in the south of Doraerlin Village, traces of frequent human passage were clearly visible on the ground here. In some places where it was easy to walk, paths had even been trodden out.

The bandits had even used autumn leaves to slightly conceal the paths, but Zhao Ji saw through it easily.

Using his feet to push aside the hidden paths on the ground, Zhao Ji began to advance along this faint path.

Because he was carrying a full set of weapons and equipment—he had brought everything except his armor—Zhao Ji did not walk fast. After walking for about two hours, the winter sun was still climbing, and the sunlight passing through the upper layer of the forest, where the leaves had all fallen, was as listless as a man with kidney problems.

Zhao Ji made some marks at every fork in this faint path. He would either carve symbols on tree trunks or cut off small branches and prop three of them together to make a conspicuous mark.

Before long, Zhao Ji reached the end of the path he had chosen at yet another fork.

It seemed there was no road left, so Zhao Ji scratched his head and twitched his nose.

He smelled some odors that were different from those in the forest.

Searching around, Zhao Ji discovered a pit dug by someone behind a tree here, inside which were scattered many food scraps.

An excited Zhao Ji quickly judged that these were food scraps that would only be found near a human dwelling. Zhao Ji judged that this should be living waste produced by a small, hidden Yingdi arranged by some bandits nearby; because they could not be discovered, the bandits had specifically dug a pit not far away to dump their household trash.

Around this pit, Zhao Ji also discovered many animal trails created by small animals from the forest coming to eat the waste discarded by humans.

It seemed that even the forest animals had already included those bandits hiding in the mountains and forests as part of the forest ecosystem.

How interesting.

Zhao Ji retreated along the path he had come from and chose another direction at the previous fork.

Soon, he vigilantly discovered in advance that there seemed to be signs of human activity behind a raised mound of earth not far ahead. Zhao Ji immediately crawled down, placed his Backpack at the base of a tree, and also put his gray wolf-fur Cloak, which was relatively conspicuous in the forest, into the Backpack.

He had not brought that Two-handed Axe out this time; after all, the opponents he had to deal with were Humans, and he had already given his word to the blacksmith Bodeer that he would not use the axe he had gifted him to kill Humans, so he had not brought that thing along this time.

In fact, Zhao Ji also felt that the axe was a bit heavy. If he had a Handcart to carry it, it would be fine, but since he had to carry everything himself, he still felt the axe was too heavy. After all, he did not know how long he would have to stay in the forest this time.

Zhao Ji lay hidden on the ground, carefully crawling forward with his Long Spear on his back. Looking at the soft fallen leaves on the ground around him, and then looking at his own clothing, Zhao Ji wondered if he needed to specifically prepare a set of camouflage clothing for hidden movement in the forest.

Pondering these things, Zhao Ji slowly approached the mound ahead.

While still some distance from the mound, Zhao Ji heard the sound of people talking and breaking branches to add to a campfire. The little bit of smoke rising from behind the mound was diluted and dispersed by the branches of the big trees before it could even fly above the height of the forest.

Zhao Ji lay still, listening carefully to the muffled, unclear conversation on the other side, trying his best to judge how many people were there.

He had not dealt with human enemies before, and now he did not know if the people on the other side were deer hunters who had entered the mountains, or smuggling Merchants who had broken into the forest to bypass the pass to avoid paying taxes.

Or, was it a small group of bandits hiding here, preparing to rob?

"Not yet..., it's been..., were we played?" A voice that could be heard clearly came from the other side of the mound; listening to the tone, it sounded like a rude man speaking.

The response that followed was also in equally rude language: "Damn!... dare to come back and say no, I'll... him! Damn it." The ugly cursing mixed with a few sentences allowed Zhao Ji to judge that there were at least two people behind the mound, and they did not seem to be doing anything good.

They were waiting for someone to return, which meant there was at least one more person outside.

Just as Zhao Ji was lying there, wanting to hear more of the conversation to judge the number of people and what they were doing, a rude middle-aged man walked out from behind the mound, dressed casually but wrapped in all sorts of miscellaneous clothes for warmth.

The man walked while unfastening the belt on his pants, seemingly intending to go further away to relieve himself.

But the man had only taken two steps when he saw Zhao Ji, who had not had time to dodge behind a tree.

He did not even have time to tie the unfastened belt; the man shouted a question, and while grabbing his pants with one hand, he drew a curved Dagger from his waist with the other.

"Who's there!"

Seeing that he had been suddenly discovered, Zhao Ji stood up without speaking. He had not yet figured out whether the other party was a bandit, and it was not convenient to attack, so he had to first dodge behind the nearest tree trunk, exposing half his face to observe the situation.

Following the loud questioning of the man who had been relieving himself, two more rude men dressed in similarly miscellaneous clothes walked out from behind the mound, both holding weapons.

One held a long-handled wood-chopping axe, and the other held a Cleaver, with a pitch-black Short Bow on his back and a quiver made from animal skin slung at his waist.

As soon as Zhao Ji saw the attire and weapons of these few people, he reckoned they were not good people.

"Gentlemen! What are you doing in this forest? I'm out hunting, and I don't want to have a conflict with you all." Zhao Ji exposed half his head and said to the three people who were slowly closing in.

Unexpectedly, as soon as his words were out, they provoked the three people closing in to mock him: "What is this kid saying? We brothers are all 'good people', ha. You stay there and don't move, we won't come over."

Although they said they wouldn't come over, the three of them were still slowly walking over. The bandit at the very back, who had been preparing to relieve himself, did not even bother to tie his belt, and while closing in, he winked at his two accomplices.

Once they got close, the two bandits with the Cleaver and the axe stopped pretending and directly shouted for Zhao Ji, who was hiding behind the tree, to drop his weapon and crawl over, or else they would make him suffer.

"If you don't come over, in a while we'll cut off your feet and make you crawl back just like that!"

"Why bother with that, just hack this kid to death and be done with it. He discovered our camp, can we still let him live?"

The two bandits seemed to have slightly different ideas on how to deal with Zhao Ji.

Confirming that they were indeed bandits, Zhao Ji also let go of his worry about potentially hurting innocent people. In just this short time, he had judged from the way the two held their weapons and their completely unprepared postures that these were just two pieces of small fry.

Except for needing to be careful about the person using the Short Bow to create distance and the axe of the person using the long-handled logging axe, there was nothing to worry about, let alone the person behind who was comically holding a curved Dagger in one hand and his falling pants in the other.

Clang.

Drawing his Long Sword from its Sword Sheath, Zhao Ji walked slowly out from behind the tree.

Just as the opponent finally saw Zhao Ji clearly, Zhao Ji stepped forward quickly and charged toward the Bandit carrying a Short Bow.

As the opponent tried to swing the Cleaver to force the charging Zhao Ji back, Zhao Ji's Long Sword moved diagonally along the path of the opponent's Cleaver, deflecting its trajectory and allowing him to close in on the person at short range.

With the hilt in front, Zhao Ji slammed the hilt of his sword into the Bandit's neck, causing the opponent to stare with wide, pained eyes and emit an unintelligible whimper from their mouth.

Seeing their companion under attack, another Bandit immediately swung a logging axe with a specially lengthened handle, hacking down at Zhao Ji from above.

Zhao Ji's face looked unpleasant; it wasn't the opponent's offensive that made him feel troubled, but the opponent's sluggish footwork, the redundant motion of raising the axe to strike, and the wasted time—all of it was an eyesore to him.

With such a movement of charging forward two steps, laboriously lifting the axe, and then hacking straight down, even an old man with decent eyesight could probably dodge it.

Zhao Ji felt that the strength of these Bandits was truly too pathetic; if the Bandits in the Nanbu of Kendall County were all at this level, then he felt the real difficulty of this commission wasn't dealing with the Bandits, but how to find them in these vast mountains and forests.

The opponent's movements were so slow that Zhao Ji even had time to shrug; then, Zhao Ji stepped back, while his right foot hooked the Bandit who had dropped the Cleaver and was clutching their neck in pained retching, causing the person to fall toward the spot where Zhao Ji had just been standing.

Needless to say.

The Bandit using the axe could not hold back the full force of the downward-hacking logging axe and struck the skull of their companion who had fallen to the ground; with a crisp "Crack!", as expected of a logging axe, it easily split the Bandit's skull open.

The axe entered from the back of the head and exited from the front of the face, splitting the entire head of this unlucky Bandit in two.

The two remaining Bandits were stunned; it wasn't that they hadn't killed people before, and they had naturally killed their own kind too. But they had truly never seen a way of dying like this.

The Bandit behind, who was holding up their pants, questioned the Bandit who had killed their own companion: "What the f#ck did you do! Why did you hack your own person!"

The Bandit who wanted to explain had just opened their mouth when the ignored Zhao Ji lunged forward, thrusting his Long Sword into the mouth of the Bandit who had just spoken. This sword entered through the mouth and pierced out through the back of the head, killing the Bandit instantly.

The opponent's wide-open eyes could no longer close, and just like that, their whole body lost control, then they knelt to the ground, their hands still tightly gripping their axe.

Those eyes that could not close remained fixed on the companion they had just hacked to death.

Zhao Ji had no interest in closing the eyes for this Bandit; he discovered that stabbing a Bandit to death, stabbing a Human to death, was actually no different from stabbing a goblin to death.

If there was anything different to say, it was that the expressions on a Human's face were richer than a goblin's and easier to distinguish. As for the green faces of goblins, aside from their screams, Zhao Ji couldn't really tell if a goblin was afraid or excited.

The Bandit behind, who was holding up their pants with one hand and holding a curved Dagger in the other, had just wanted to flee this place; after all, it seemed they had provoked an especially formidable opponent, someone they couldn't handle—at the very least, they would need to gather a dozen people to surround and kill him.

However, before they had run two steps, they were caught up to, and the steel blade of a Long Spear pierced through their calf.

Presumably, it had shredded their tendon; the Bandit collapsed to the ground, but instead of howling in pain while clutching their leg, they crawled on the ground without even wanting the Dagger anymore, attempting to leave this place.

However, their hand was then pierced by the Long Spear and pinned into the soft soil, driven in deeply.

The Bandit turned their head in terror, looking at the person standing there.

The opponent's figure blocked the light of the listless sun, making it impossible to see the opponent's face clearly.

While hissing in pained groans, the Bandit begged this young man for mercy, their whole body trembling.

A disdainful snort came from the opponent.

"Hmph!"